Called

We're spending some time this month for the next few weeks just highlighting our amazing volunteers at this church.

And everyone who was on the screen just now serves on teams that we kind of categorize as our hospitality teams, teams that come here to make sure that everyone who walks through the door gets welcome, that there's coffee ready, that the building's what it should be.

And uh because just like when you have guests over to your home, you care about the state of your home, and we care about that very much here.

And so can we just take a second and and put our hands together for all of our hospitality people?

You guys, you guys do an amazing job.

And you know, if you've never been part of a team at his hands, if you you've been here for a while, that you consider this your church, I would just encourage you to join a team.

Here's here's our promise to you we're gonna find your fit.

We're not gonna we're not gonna put you on a team just because it's where we have the biggest need.

Uh like our parking team is kind of a brand new team, and we're really excited to finally have that, especially on weeks where it's crazy busy to make sure that there's there's space for everyone, that it flows right.

We need a lot more people on that team to make it work right for the long haul.

We'll get those people.

We don't worry about that.

Our desire is to make sure that you find a team that you fit, that your personality, your interests, your gifts, your desires, they fit.

So if you'd like to join a team, if you want to be part of this place in a new way, just go to the Connect Desk in the main lobby and they will help you find your fit.

There'll be great people there to help with that.

Um I want to take a second really quickly before we pray and jump into the message uh to thank everyone who serves, to thank everyone who prays, and to thank you all uh for supporting his hands financially.

Uh, it's amazing how often God will put just thoughts and words into my mind to remind me how important it is to give.

And if you're here for the very first time, we're not gonna pass a plate or a bucket or anything like that.

Uh we we really leave it up to God to call us to do that, and we trust, we trust each other to respond.

But but man, when we do, the results are unbelievable.

I was sitting in the back and watching worship during the first service, and I'm watching Matt and Eliza, who I've known for years.

I mean, for years.

When I first met Matt, he was 17 years old, 16 or 17, one of our high school students, um, really, really quiet, really laid back, one of those people that you just never would have thought, oh, he'll probably stand on a stage and and lead a bunch of people in worship and talk and all that kind of stuff.

Eliza was this sixth grade girl, and I'll just, I mean, I'll never forget just her in junior high, and uh kind of acted the same, you know, just bubbly and and passionate.

But what's what's amazing, what I love so much just about our worship team in general, just to take a second and thank them, uh, because they're they're volunteers, if you didn't realize that.

Uh man, when they worship, I believe them.

You know, that's my favorite thing.

Um but but watching these two who have been part of this church for seven, eight, nine years, who have grown up in a lot of ways in this church, that this place has been there for them in the most formative years of their life, and now they are are leading and serving and doing it at a capacity that I'm sure many of us would say, yeah, when I was when I was 19, that that's what was on my mind.

You know what I mean?

Was helping people connect with God.

It's amazing.

And those of you who serve, those of you who give, every contribution you make, it makes that possible for them and for the lives of hundreds of other people.

I mean, think about what's what it's gonna be like in 20 years, in 30 years.

When you give, that's the result.

It's lives changed and it's lives transformed, and it's amazing.

So thank you for that.

There are four columns at the back of the room if you want to help us out this week, and we really appreciate it.

Let's pray and let's let's talk about Jesus.

God, thank you so much for this group of people.

Uh, thank you for the opportunity to come here and just connect with you, learn from you, uh, learn about you, God.

And we pray right now you would open our minds and our hearts to receive what you have for us through your word and just help my words not get in the way.

And I pray this in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, hey, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who reminded me this last week that it was my wife's birthday.

Thank you so much.

Um, if you were here a few months ago, I shared a story about how I forgot my wife's birthday two years ago.

Completely blanked, forgot, bad moment, and I asked you all to email me, set reminders, Facebook me, whatever, to remind me.

And wow, did you guys come through?

Thank you so, so much.

I got I got so many emails, and I would not have forgotten even if it wasn't for the emails.

On Megan's birthday, I got really sick.

It was this last week.

I had 103 degree temperature, so we we had reservations, I had all that set up, but we had to postpone them.

And last night we went out, but it was uh it was a blast, it was a joy.

It was a pretty cool moment for me last night because Megan and I have have been together for over 10 years.

Well, we've been married for over 10 years, we've been together for 13 or 14, and we got together really young.

We were high school sweethearts.

And I remember back to to high school before we started dating, I had some friends in high school that were like, I'm gonna marry my girlfriend.

And I just remember at lunch being like, You're stupid.

That is the dumbest thing that you're gonna marry your girlfriend in high school.

I thought that was ridiculous, and then I'm the one that married my high school sweetheart.

Uh, but it's been so cool.

I was looking at Megan across this table last night.

She's beautiful, she's my best friend, and I was thinking about how many stages of life I've gotten to live with her.

That we we lived high school together and and college and young adult life and our first real jobs, we had that together.

We waited tables together when we were in college.

I mean, we've we've been through so many stages of life, and I'm so excited about you know that the next stages, she's pregnant, we're expecting our third child, and we're sitting there last night, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Not scary at all.

Three children, none at all.

Um and so we're sitting there last night, and I'm just I'm reflecting on how incredible of a blessing she is, and I'm thinking about all the moments we've had in the past and all the growth that we have created in one another, because that's that's something that happens in any relationship.

Marriage, friendship, you know, partnerships you even have in your workplace.

You sharpen one another, you help one another grow.

There's so many things about us that are completely different because we're married to one another.

I used to be the most passive aggressive person you can know.

Um we would have arguments, and I would, I would never raise my voice, I would never, I would never like escalate, not very often at least, but but I would say really snide remarks that were just backhanded, you know, like passive aggressive behavior, where I would say, Whoa, whoa, calm down.

I don't know why you're so angry.

Clearly, you need to take a moment and breathe, you know.

And but I was saying it to make her mad.

I was I was a jerk like that.

I I knew how to push her buttons, and in that first year of marriage, um, there were moments where I decided, just being stupid, that I would push a button that I should not have pushed, right?

You know how that is?

Where you go, whoa, I wrong button to push, and it was on me for doing it.

I remember early our marriage, our first year, I I made, I made Megan really mad and rightfully so.

Megan does not get angry very often.

Those of you that know Megan know that she has spunk, she is not afraid to speak her mind, but she is patient and she is kind and she is loving.

And so you might have known Megan for a long time, and you're like, Megan gets fired up, and if you push a few buttons, yes, she does, and I push those.

And so this this one day, she gets super fired up because of something I did, and she calls me out.

Have you ever been called out in life?

You know what I'm talking about, where someone decides that this is the moment you need to know the error of your ways, because you need to correct this from now on.

Megan is calling me out, and she is doing it effectively, we'll say, with passion.

And it's kind of funny because when Megan gets fired up, this only happens like once every five or six years, where Megan gets really fired up, but when she does, she tends to have a really hard time with her words.

And so it can lead to some very interesting moments because when the person that you love that you're looking at is is upset with you because of something that you have done that you deserve, and then they say something that comes out in a really funny way.

If you crack a smile or laugh, like that's that's bad.

You don't want to do that.

But sometimes with Megan, it will happen, and it's so obvious that even Megan has to stop and laugh.

And so, you know, early in our marriage, first year, I I'm I'm just getting it, and I deserve it.

Megan is is bringing it, but this time she doesn't she doesn't trip over her words, she doesn't she doesn't say anything funny, she doesn't slip up and she finishes the whole thing.

And I think she was excited that she got through that and didn't say a single thing that was just strange or weird.

So she decided to say one more thing.

Just a little zinger at the end, a cherry on top, and that's when it all fell apart.

I'll never forget, because she's pretty fired up, and she looks at me and points her finger and says, So you can put that in your pope and smike it.

And uh now I've I've heard the phrase, you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.

We've all heard that, hopefully.

Uh I've never thought about smiking the Pope, and I really don't even know what smiking is, but I'm fairly certain that if you even attempted to smike the Pope, you would be arrested quickly, thrown in jail.

I don't know what it means to smike, but if it if it's something, just don't do it to the Pope, right?

Put that in your Pope and smike it.

And when that came out, Megan just busted out laughing.

And I love little moments like that in relationships because they they give us these kind of anchors.

And so even to this day, if if one of us is upset with the other one and we're showing that frustration, and then in the back of our mind we realize, hold on a second, I'm blowing this out of proportion.

And we just stop and say, you know what, so why don't you just go put that in your pope and smike it?

It it just makes both of us calm down and it resets everything.

It's really, really nice.

There are moments in life though where I have grown to be very thankful that I married a woman who is not afraid in the right moments, because Megan is really good about picking her spots, in the right moments to call me out and to challenge me.

And I'm serious, I need that.

It helps me grow.

I have grown to appreciate it because she is so patient, because she's so kind that when she she does decide to call me out, it is generally something I need.

All of us know what it's like to be called out.

All of us know what it's like, hopefully, to be called out by someone who has earned the right to do that from time to time.

We also know what it's like to be called out by someone who has not earned the right to do that.

Someone who comes and asks for permission to give us some feedback, and we say yes, because we have to, but we really don't want them to say anything because we don't care so much.

You know, we don't know them, they don't know us, we don't want that, but we get that anyway.

That's hard.

Getting called out can be a pretty trying experience.

In fact, if I said this morning, hey, let's talk about being called out, let's let's get called out this morning.

Most of us would probably say, no, thank you.

Um but have you ever been called out in a good way?

Have you ever been called out in the sense that someone has recognized something in you that you did not recognize in yourself?

Someone sees something, some ability, some possibility inside of you, and they decide to bring that to your attention.

And it might be something that you've overlooked in yourself, or it might be something that you've recognized, but everyone else has overlooked, but that person sees it and they call that out in you.

It's like they're calling you out into a greater identity, into a greater destiny for your life.

They're raising the bar that you even have for yourself.

There haven't been many times in my life where I can say, yes, that happened.

I got called out in that way, but when they happen, they're powerful.

I've seen that happen in my life, I've seen it happen in the lives of my friends, I've seen it happen in Megan's life.

Uh Megan, Megan's one of the smartest people I know.

I didn't do anything wrong this week, by the way.

The fact that I'm bragging about Megan, don't worry, this is not me making up for anything that I know of, but I probably do need to make up for something anyway.

So let's, all bases covered.

Megan is, she's super intelligent.

In fact, she doesn't like to ever say things like this, but she had a full ride to college, full scholarship ride to a private college, very expensive, and she actually turned scholarships down.

There were scholarships that she decided, I don't need that.

Like, I already have college paid for.

Who does that?

Who turns scholars?

I mean, I asked her if she could give me some of hers, but they don't work that way.

Uh, Megan didn't even need some of the scholarships she got.

From the time I first met her when she was young in high school, she wanted to be a teacher.

In fact, her mom told me that when she was in kindergarten, she would come home from school and then pretend that she was still in school and she would be the teacher and she would make her younger siblings be the students, which uh would have been awful, right?

That you're not in school yet, but you have to pretend you're in school.

But the fact that Megan got home from school and wanted to pretend like she was back in school, that's rare.

That means you're probably cut out to be a teacher if you do that.

And so Megan had this passion for teaching, she had this desire to teach, and she believed that she had a talent for it, but how do you know that unless you you do it?

I got to witness this moment in her life where she was called out for her potential, and it was it was pretty amazing.

There was a scholarship at the college that we attended, and it was an education scholarship, and it was very exclusive.

They only gave it to four students a year, and it ended up having a$50,000 price tag over your four years in college.

So it was a four-year, a four-year scholarship for$50,000, ended up covering half the tuition.

And as you can imagine, with$50,000 on the line, the applications were many, and so well over a hundred students applied for this for this scholarship, and it was competitive.

You had to write essays and you had to interview and you had to sort of present yourself and explain why you deserve this.

It's really challenging.

Megan is not the kind of person that just likes to put herself out there, and so it was hard for her, and she believed she had a knack, she believed she had a talent for teaching, and it's one thing to believe that in yourself, but it's another thing to put yourself in front of people who will judge whether or not that's true.

But I will never forget the phone call that I got from her when they awarded that scholarship to her.

When she called me and said, I'm blown away, they they gave me the scholarship.

She had a confidence in her ability to teach that that she had never had before.

And so she entered college with that and used it and was so successful, but it's because someone called her out.

Someone said, Yes, I see it in you, and I want to make sure you're aware of your ability.

If you've never been called out like that, I want you to know that that's what God does constantly in our lives.

We've been in this series for the last few months called Who Do You Think You Are, and we're wrapping this up today.

It's the last message in this series.

We've been looking at who God says we are in Scripture.

And it's it's kind of unbelievable because God has this image of us in his mind that does not match our image of ourselves.

God seems to have this idea that we are so much more than we think we can be.

His opinion of us is it's it's ridiculously high.

You see, time and time again in scripture where God shows up and he tells a man or a woman who they are, and they say, No, you have the wrong person.

I am not that capable, I'm not that talented, I'm not that gifted, you need to find someone else.

But God knows better.

And scripture is in so many ways the story of God putting people in their place, but it's not God putting them lower, it's God raising us up, it's God restoring us to our place, and it's God telling us that we are more than we believe we are.

So, as part of this series, we've looked at we've looked at all these different words, all these different identities that God gives us in Scripture.

He tells us that we're mighty, that we are literally made to conquer life.

That the order God has ordained is God, us, and life, and not God, life in us.

God tells us that we are free.

That we are literally free from everything inside of us that would hold us back from being the people that we are meant to be.

He tells us that we're royalty.

The king of the universe calls us royalty.

He tells us that we're made new, he calls us a gift to this world.

We could keep going on and on.

The list is really endless if we'd like it to be.

But I want to I want to wrap this series up today with one more identity, and I think this one is crucial, and I think it's crucial that it's the last one because this identity is one that we're given by God, but it's not just for us.

It's not just about who we are, it's actually something that informs what we're supposed to do with who we are.

Because God has a purpose for us, God has a purpose for our lives, and so when God comes into our lives and when he tells us who we really are, he's telling us that for a reason.

He's telling us that because he has created us to do something.

We are made with a purpose.

We are called by God.

I want you to know this morning that according to God, your life has a great and powerful calling upon it.

That's that's this word you hear in scripture where people are called to do something, that God is drawing them to this, that God has given them a destiny, and the Bible teaches that your life has a calling upon it, that you are called by God.

You are mighty, you are royalty, you are made new, you are called.

In the New Testament, Jesus would talk often about the church, about this church that he wanted to build.

And it's interesting, we hear the word church and a lot of things come to mind.

Depends on how we were raised.

I was raised really strict Southern Baptist, and uh and my parents actually changed uh the kind of churches that we went to a lot, so I had a very wide variety of experiences.

Like I went to a very traditional Southern Baptist church, and many of us may have come from that.

Great things.

I learned a ton, I had a great experience, I met Jesus there.

Um, for us, we had kind of a different trinity, and I can say this because I was a Southern Baptist, so you know I'm not poking fun.

I'm one.

You can do that, you can make fun of yourself.

Um our trinity was not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit freaked us out.

Okay?

We only said the Holy Spirit's name when we baptized someone, and we said it fast.

It was like, you're baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We just kind of whisper it like that.

So for us, it was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Bible.

Now that that was like, we're all about that.

But then my parents changed and they went to a Pentecostal church.

Now, if you grew up Pentecostal, that's like the exact opposite.

And weird stuff was happening, and I didn't know what to do, and and oh, it was hard.

It was hard.

It was a big, big adjustment.

But I'm really grateful that I had that I had that variety in my life.

When Jesus said that he wanted to build the church, it's hard for us to understand it.

No one had an idea of what that meant.

There were no preconceived notions of what the church would look like.

In fact, we use the word church, it actually derives from this really old Gothic word, and it's a word that actually meant building or place of worship.

Because by the time the word that we get the word church from came into existence, the church that Jesus began, that church had already become an institution.

And so it had power and it had buildings, and so people would see a building where people worshiped and they would say, Oh, that's the church.

But when Jesus said the church, when he talked about the church, he was not talking about a building at all.

The word he used had nothing to do with an institution or a structure.

When Jesus talked about the church, he were he used a Greek word called ecclesia.

In fact, in Matthew 16, 18, it's a great example.

He's talking to Peter, who used to be called Simon.

He says, Now I say that you are Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.

When he says, I will build my church, we might think, yeah, build a church, a building.

No.

No, he was not talking about a building, he wasn't talking about an institution.

He used the word ecclesia that gets translated church because it's just how we understand it.

But that word meant something very different.

It meant a movement, it meant a gathering of people that are united by a common purpose.

But it's not some gathering that just happens spontaneously, it's a gathering that happens because someone calls the people to gather.

In fact, the word ecclesia literally translates.

If you want to look at a literal translation of that word, it is those who are called out.

Those who are called out.

We are called out by God.

So is this called out in the first sense of the term where someone's calling us out of a behavior that we need to stop?

Is God saying, put that in your pope and smike it?

Or is this God calling us out in the second sense?

Is this God calling us into a new life?

And the answer is it's both, really.

It's both.

I want to talk for a second about God.

Is that okay to do in church?

I think it is.

So um God, God is He's amazing.

He must be more patient than we can imagine because there's never been someone more misunderstood than God, even by the people who claim to know him best.

And I find that in my own life.

There are so many times where I think I've got God figured out, I think I've got him in the right God box, and uh and turns out he just doesn't fit in one.

God is so often misunderstood, and he seems so patient with us to sort of figure that out as we go, and it seems that half of life is us just figuring out what we don't know and admitting that.

And that's where he seems to meet us most.

There's a few times in Scripture where God decides to define himself in a way for us that helps us understand him, though.

There are two things in Scripture that God says he is: not analogies that God is using, not illustrations that he's giving to help us sort of understand something about him, but times where he says, no, no, I am this.

He says, I am holy, and I am love.

Holiness means to be set apart.

The fact that God is holy means he's perfect.

There's not a flaw in him.

He is completely pure, and he is love.

He is a kind of love that we don't really see much in this world, if at all, other than from God.

God, in a sense, is pure love.

I'm proud to be part of a church, to be part of an ecclesia, a movement that's not just here at his hands, but it's all over this country that desires to show the world around us that God is love.

Because for generations, that is not what defined the church.

And it's an honor to be part of a movement where we get to sort of reset that understanding.

But it's interesting, we have this tendency as human beings to sometimes overcorrect.

Have you ever noticed that?

Where we we realize something is not right, that it's going in the wrong direction, so we want to change that direction, and so we'll go like a whole different direction, and we just kind of zigzag back and forth.

And so this word love in our culture, it's very ambiguous.

It means a lot of different things.

And when people say all the time, God is love, God is love, God is love, that can be confusing.

People don't understand what that means.

Does that mean that God just thinks we're wonderful and great?

Well, yeah, he does.

He thinks we're amazing.

He loves us.

He's told us that time and time again in scripture.

But something we see happening in our culture right now, even in Christian culture, is that God is love can sort of become love is God.

And this idea forms that because God is so loving, that He's not really concerned with how we live life.

That's not the words that are used, but that's the message that is sent when this idea is out there that, oh no, God, God doesn't care so much about that certain lifestyle or that approach to life or that decision or whatever it is, that God, He's love.

He's just love.

So we just, we all need to just live how we live and be accepted by God and be loved.

But here's the thing that's not love.

My wife from time to time calls me out of a behavior that I need to stop because she loves me.

In those moments, she is not acting out of out of hate, she's not acting out of judgment, she's actually acting out of love for me.

Think about it this way: imagine, imagine you're driving your car and you get a flat tire and you don't have a spare.

So you pull off on the side of the road and you don't know what to do, and a friend of yours pulls up next to you, and this friend of yours has a spare tire and knows how to how to change a spare tire, has all the equipment needed to help you out, but they don't want you to feel bad.

They don't want to draw attention to your plight and make you feel like you failed because you forgot the spare tire or or you drove over that nail or whatever it is.

So they just pull up next to you and they say, Hey friend, you're awesome.

You you're a good driver, and that is a lovely car.

Have a nice day.

And they drive off, right?

And you're gonna be like, that's the nicest person in the world, and somehow they're also a jerk because I feel good about myself, that's nice, but I'm in no better shape than I was just a few minutes ago.

I'm still stranded on the side of the road.

That is not real love.

That is not what a friend does.

Not at all.

God is a great friend.

In fact, Jesus says that because of our relationship with Him, we have friendship with God.

And God is the kind of friend who loves us so much that He cares desperately for our life right now.

God cares about your marriage, He cares about your job, He cares about your relationship with your children, your relationship with your parents, God cares about every single aspect of your life, and he cares about you so much that he refuses, he refuses to sit by and allow you to be stuck and stranded in life without offering help, without, without calling you out of whatever it is that might be causing you to be stuck.

God refuses to do that because he loves us too much.

There's an amazing verse in 1 Peter that describes this concept of God calling us out so well.

Peter's talking about people who have rejected Jesus, but then he tells these people, you're not like that.

You are a chosen people, you are royal priests, you're a holy nation, God's very own possession.

Talk about some incredible identities that we could just add to the list.

As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light.

God loves us so much that he does not pretend that the darkness isn't there.

And he calls us out of darkness, out of whatever behavior, whatever mindset, whatever condition we're in, that keeps us from living life in the light.

So God calls us, we are the ones called out.

That's what the word church means, the ones called out.

What does that mean?

It means we are the ones called out of the darkness and into the light.

If you look at the life of Jesus, you see that constantly.

He called this man named Zacchaeus out of the darkness of greed and obsession with money and into the light of God's generosity.

There was a woman at a well that Jesus talked to one day, and she was living her life in darkness.

It was darkness that you could call lust and promiscuity.

And the truth is, she had likely been hurt and damaged and abused in her past, and there were probably really legitimate reasons why she was in that stage of life.

But Jesus called her out of that darkness.

He brought it up.

And he called her out of that darkness, and he called her into the light of his acceptance.

She became the very first person that Jesus ever looked at and said the words, I am the Messiah, too.

She was the first person to hear Jesus declare who he really was because she stepped into the light of God's acceptance.

So many of the disciples were in a kind of darkness that many of us have felt.

They were just aimless in life.

They felt no purpose for their lives beyond just getting through the next day.

Just getting through the day.

That was the only goal they had in life.

And Jesus called them out of the darkness of an aimless life, and he gave them purpose that is far greater than themselves.

He called them to be part of a movement and to be at the very forefront of a movement that would change the world.

Jesus constantly called people out of the darkness into the light.

He called people from death to life.

It is not unloving for God to show us what needs to change in us, to call us out of something.

Some of my favorite verses remind me of this.

Hebrews 4.12 says, For the word of God is alive and powerful.

It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow.

It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

2 Timothy 3.16 says, All scripture is inspired by God, and it's useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It corrects us when we are wrong and it teaches us to do what is right.

God is a God who calls out.

But he calls out for a purpose.

Because just like that friend would be a jerk if they pulled up next to you and didn't address the fact that you have a flat tire and you're stuck, if God just pulled up next to us, if he's that friend, he's like, hey, you have a flat tire, that's no good, and then drove off.

Again, still a jerk, just a different kind of jerk.

See, God does not call us out just to call us out.

He doesn't point to us and reveal in us, reveal in our hearts the things that we need to work on, the things that we need to grow in in our lives just so we know, just so we're aware.

Because let's be honest, how many of us need a lot of help becoming aware of our issues?

You know?

I mean a few of us.

And trust me, I have issues that pop up plenty of the times where I'm like, wow, I'm way worse at that than I thought.

But I think most days we're all pretty good at realizing what we're not so good at.

See, God doesn't call us out to call us out, he calls us into the light.

His desire for our lives is so great that he's chosen to call us into a life with him that changes everything.

Because we have this fear sometimes of the darkness in our lives being exposed.

See, light does not expose darkness.

Light turns darkness into light.

You don't turn the light on in your room, and half of your room is still dark.

It's not how it works.

Light expels darkness.

And when we answer that call of God, we're the ones who are called out.

When we answer that call, we step into the light of God.

The darkness in our lives, those issues that we deal with, they begin to dissipate, they begin to fade away over time, but often faster than we can imagine because God is light, and when we step into his light, our darkness becomes light, our lives change.

I know many of us have experienced that.

Many of us could say, yeah, you know, I was in the darkness of addiction, now I'm in the light of freedom.

Many of us could say, you know what?

Trust me, my marriage, it was dark.

And now it's the brightest part of my life because God is in it.

So many of us have testimony after testimony of what it means to step out of darkness and into light.

And if you're someone that has not experienced that, all you have to do is answer the call.

See, I spent so much of my life dealing with a lot of darkness, and I was waiting for God to pick me up and place me in the light.

I was waiting for God to drag me into the light, to force me into the light.

It's kind of how it is right now with our daughter.

She's 18 months old, and so she can walk, but she never goes to the right places.

And so we will pick her up and just move her where we think she needs to be.

We'll be like, nope, you need to be right here.

And then what will she do?

Nope, I'm gonna go back where I want to go.

And it's exhausting sometimes.

And it must be strange from her perspective.

I'm just, I'm gonna go over here, and you picked me up again and you've moved me.

Why did you do that?

And sometimes I think, well, if God loves me, won't he do that to me?

Won't he just pick me up and put me where I need to be?

See, God's a good dad.

He knows that, well, if I did that, you're just gonna go right back to where you were.

What God does is he calls us into the light.

He doesn't force us, he doesn't push us, he doesn't make us, he calls us.

And it's up to us to answer the call.

When we do, the stakes are high and powerful.

I want to go back to 1 Peter.

He's talking about being God's people, about answering that call, stepping out of the darkness into the light, answering that call that God has given us.

And he says, as a result, you can show others the goodness of God.

This is kind of that rubber meets the road moment.

That we are we are called by God.

We are the church, we are the ecclesia, the ones called out.

But we are called out by God, not just for ourselves.

The benefits for us are huge.

The benefits are God's peace, his love, his joy, his passion, his hope, his faith, it's self-control, it's perseverance, it's strength, it's power, it's all these incredible things that God brings into our life, but he calls us to him not just for us, but for other people.

Because remember, to be the church, to be the ecclesia, it means that we are called out to gather together for a purpose.

Because if we if we just call out and gather together, that's that's not us fulfilling the purpose that Jesus had in mind when he said, I'm gonna build my church.

We exist to serve, we exist for other people.

And when I said earlier that you have a calling on your life, my hope is that you understand today that God's opinion of you is so high that he looks at you and he sees you as capable, as able, and in fact, as being the perfect person to lead someone in your life to him.

You are called by God.

You are called out to invite in.

Called out of darkness to be in the light, but then to bring people in.

In fact, Jesus said that we're like a city on a hill when we follow him.

That he wants our light to be on display for the world to see, so that other people will see God in us, just like Peter said, so that we can show the goodness of God off to the world that we're part of.

That's what it means to be called out by God.

The question is, will we be people who answer the call?

Now, I want to pause for a second here, and guys, you can take that verse off the screen now.

I want to talk for a second about this church.

And if you're if you're new or relatively new, we don't talk a lot about us internally, uh, mainly because we we love Jesus and we love to talk about Jesus, and we get fixated on him and rightfully so.

Uh this last Tuesday, I was in a meeting uh here on Tuesday night, and we're meeting with this gentleman named Rodney, who you may have met before, or uh if you haven't, you'll definitely get a chance to meet him soon.

Rodney started an organization called One Need that we have partnered with.

Um, they're they're one of the many ministries that we support financially at his hands.

Uh, and by the way, again, you guys, generosity-wise, you know, we've given close to$90,000 away this year, which is pretty incredible.

So thank you for all that.

Well, OneNeed helps us meet needs in this community.

And just through OneNeed, just through them, we've been able to meet the needs of about$9,000 worth of needs in this local community just in a few months.

It's really amazing.

They raise that money.

We'll explain how all that works.

It's it's cool.

Um, but it's not enough.

And so we had this meeting where we pulled a group of people together.

Some of the people in this room were at that meeting, and basically the idea is this we're not satisfied with the current ability we have to help people.

We want to do more.

We want to be able to help anyone.

We recognize that right now we're not equipped to help everyone, but we want to be able to say with confidence, we can help anyone.

Anyone can walk in and we can be equipped to help them.

And so we had this meeting to brainstorm and talk and plan on how we as a church can be in a position to help more people than we've ever been able to help.

And Rodney stopped us about halfway through the meeting because he's worked with a lot of churches, and he said, guys, I just want you to understand that you're weird.

That you're not normal.

He said, This is not normal.

And you may realize this, uh, maybe not for some of us, that this month marks the 10-year anniversary of his hands, which is really cool.

It's awesome.

Some people believe I was nine years old ten years ago, but it's not true.

Um, it's not true.

It's why I have this crummy beard.

If I shaved it, I look like a child.

Um I'm still waiting for my baby fat to go away at 32.

But ten years ago, you know, you think about it in ten years, a thousand people have been baptized here.

In ten years.

It's awesome.

Okay?

And uh, and you can golf clap for that all you want.

That was good.

That was awesome.

Um you know, there's there's so many things to celebrate.

But here's the here's the interesting thing, and this is what I believe makes this church not normal, what makes us as a family not normal, is that these are all great things to celebrate, but there's just this deep, deep sense within me, within so many of us here that are in leadership, within I know many of you that while it's great what has happened so far, while it's exciting to see what God has already done, and while we're very proud of that and excited about it, there is a deep, deep sense that we have yet to scratch the surface of what we can do to change the lives of people in this community.

We are called out by God for a purpose, and that purpose is to love people to Jesus, it's to change lives.

How do we do that?

Well, I want to unveil a brand new, really expensive marketing campaign today that no, I'm joking.

Sorry.

Um, and that's actually the thing I love is it's you know, we're not gonna do that with you know direct mail.

We're not gonna do that with billboards and commercials and a cool logo and branding and all that stuff.

You know, sometimes that stuff's effective and it happens from time to time.

You know, we've done billboards in the past, we'll probably do one around Christmas.

There's nothing wrong with that, but but that's not our approach.

That's not something that we do on a regular basis.

We don't, we don't market, we don't really sell this church because we really don't have to.

We shouldn't have to.

Because, see, the way that we change lives, the way that we bring the people who need Jesus to Jesus is not this top-down approach.

It's it's bottom-up.

Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

And it's interesting because if you planted a mustard seed in a garden in Jesus' day, it was illegal because mustard seeds were were like kudzu.

It was like a weed that you could not stop.

And a mustard seed would take over the entire garden, and all you would have would be mustard.

And that's only good on hot dogs.

That's it.

Okay.

And see, I love that because we live in a culture, and we can just be honest, we live in a culture that just constantly believes that change is gonna happen from the top down.

We get the right person in office, everything will change.

Probably not.

Right?

We get we get the right things at the top, and then everything will trickle down, but that's not the vision that Jesus gave of his church that was gonna be this this bottom-up, this, this grassroots thing.

It was just gonna be everyday normal people recognizing the fact that there are people in their lives that are in their lives for a reason.

We're going to bust out and do more, help more, serve more, reach more as a church, as the the ones called out, as the ecclesia that Jesus talked about.

We're gonna do that because each of us, each of us has every bit of ability within us given to us by God to change the lives of the people we know.

And all we have to do is invest in people and invite them to be part of our family.

That's it.

We invest in our lives in other people.

All that means is that we take a genuine interest in the lives of others.

And I guarantee you this there is someone right now that you sit next to at work for a reason.

There is someone that you live next to for a reason, there's someone that you're related to for a reason.

You may have spent your whole life wondering, how am I related to this person?

Why, why, God, am I related to this person?

Now you know.

But but understand this and think about, think about how how truly incredible this is for you.

You are in that person's life because God looked at their life and God said, They need you.

They need you in their life to be the one that invites them into the family of God.

There's this prayer that Jesus prayed shortly before he was arrested.

It's in John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

He's praying to God.

He says, I have revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world.

They were always yours.

You just gave them to me, and they've kept your word.

Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, for I have passed on to them the message you gave me.

They accepted it, and they know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me.

Jesus saw his friends, his disciples, his followers.

He saw them as the ones that God gave him.

The ones God entrusted him with.

Who are the ones God has given you?

Who are the people that When you think about their lives, when you think about everything Jesus may have done for you, the thought of them not knowing Jesus.

It hurts you.

It pains you.

Who are the people that you feel drawn to?

Who are the people that you just you love that person?

Maybe there's someone that's not even that lovable, but you just, you like that person.

Maybe it's a friend that your wife keeps saying to stop being friends with, but you're like, I just I like the guy.

I don't know why.

Who are the people that God has given you?

I just saw a husband nudge his wife.

That was funny.

Is that you, Greg?

Yeah, it was.

So, who are the people that God has given you?

I guarantee you that there is someone, at least one, in your life, and that is a person.

And I'm not exaggerating this, I'm not just trying to spin this to make it sound really cool, but no, you are in their life for a reason.

God has given them to you.

He sees you as capable and able to bring them into his family.

You are God's plan A for their life.

You're called.

You're called.

And all you have to do, all you have to do to answer that call is invest.

Invest in them, show a genuine interest in their life, talk to them, listen to them, love them, and invite them.

Invite them to be part of God's family.

Now, that might look like an invitation here.

I love the fact that I feel confident inviting any of my friends here and knowing that they're gonna be accepted and loved, knowing that this is not a normal church in a really good way, knowing that they're gonna encounter God's word in a way that it's hopefully accessible, and knowing that they're gonna be challenged to grow.

So, yeah, you know, invite.

This week, invite someone here.

We have first-time parking for the very first time ever.

So there you go.

But I'm not saying this just as some invitation strategy at all.

Inviting them into the family of God does not have to look like dragging them here, but man, this is the first church I've ever been part of that I would feel like I wouldn't have to drag someone.

I have seen, though, how powerful an invitation can be, and I'll share this as we wrap up.

There's a young guy here that I talked about for a second, uh, Matt.

Matt's one of my best friends.

Matt is Matt's one of the people that I have given permission to uh to call me out in life, and Matt's willing to do that.

He's known me for uh for a long, long time.

We're really good friends.

Um Matt's, it's it's a cool story because there's a reason that Matt is here, and it's it's just the simple power of an invitation.

There's a young man that's sitting kind of in the middle named Nate Snow.

I say young man, he's like 25 years old.

Nate, you're awesome.

Uh love you, man.

Nate, uh, when he was in high school, invited a friend of his named Jake to come to his hands.

So Jake came to his hands, uh, and and Jake came for a while, kind of liked it.

And so Jake uh invited his girlfriend, a girl named Blakely.

And so Blakely started coming here.

And Blakely happened to have a couple friends that she went to school with.

One's name was Maddie, the other's name was Matt.

And so they both started coming together, Maddie and Matt.

And I didn't know which one was Maddie and which one was Matt for like three months.

So I would just sort of walk up to him and say, Hey Maddie, hey Matt, and you know, try to walk away without them figuring out that I don't know the order, right?

And and both of these guys were were like, like I said earlier, you know, the last people you would expect to like jump in and do that.

They were just kind of hanging in the back, didn't really seem like they wanted to be there, but they were there.

And you know, for about a year and a half, Matt, one of those two, just kind of came and sat in the back, didn't really say anything.

And one day he just walks up to me out of the blue and he says, Hey Justin, can we talk?

And he just shared this thing with me and his life, and that began this relationship that we had together.

And and so I invited Matt to join uh one of the teams that I was leading at the time as soon as he graduated high school, and we started getting really close, and I had this plan for Matt's life because if you know me well, there's this thing that Megan will joke with people that God loves you, and Justin has a wonderful plan for your life.

And I had this wonderful plan for Matt's life.

He was gonna be like this this, I was leading the youth at the time.

He was gonna be this youth extraordinaire, like awesome.

I thought, oh man, he's just gonna be this awesome youth guy.

And then one day I saw him lead worship, and and I was like, well, dang it, God, no, that's not my plan for his life.

I don't need a worship guy, I need a youth guy.

And so stop doing your thing and just realize that my plan's better.

Like, come on, God.

Um, I had to sort of surrender that there, but but it's it's crazy because because Matt is here, and those of those of you that have high school age students or uh high junior high age students, uh, Matt is someone who invests in your kids a ton.

I mean, all of our students look up to Matt.

He he he's led them in worship for years, they they they get so much out of his relationship with them, but he's here because because Nate Snow, seven years ago, invited a guy who invited his girlfriend, who invited two of his friends from school.

And that's all it took.

Now he leads worship for a thousand people a week.

Come on.

You know?

The person that you invite, you have no idea the domino effect that that has.

And I can tell you how many times I have been shocked at how God has used something as simple as an invitation to keep going and going and going and lead to tens.

Is that a word?

Dozens, that is, of people.

Not just here at church, but passionate about God.

You are called.

You're called out to invite in.

And I want to encourage you, I want to challenge you as the church, as his hands church, as the ecclesia church that Jesus talked about, because I do believe this is a movement, I do believe this is a church that's not concerned with being an institution and all these rules.

I believe, I see it in you, that we are a church that loves people, that loves God, and all we want to do is see people know God.

All we want to do is see people connect with his love.

That's it.

And we'll let the rest of the chips fall where they may, but we're excited to see people connect with God.

Answer the call on your life.

And believe that God, when He says, You are enough, that you are able, that you are equipped to be a person responsible for bringing someone else in.

This week, I encourage you to invite someone in.

I know that that is the scariest thing in the world for some of us.

I get that.

I'll just I'll can I share a confession with you?

I know I'm running late, but can I share one confession with you really quickly?

Um I have two neighbors.

One lives uh, well, it depends on which way you're looking at my house.

So they both live on a different side of me.

That makes sense, okay?

Uh one set of neighbors I talk to all the time.

The other set of neighbors I have never spoken to, hardly at all.

Like, just doesn't happen.

I don't avoid them.

We don't avoid each other, it's just kind of one of those things.

And you know, it occurs to me as I'm saying this right now, just did, that here I am, and I'm I'm a pastor, and I've never invited those people here.

I've never cared enough to invite in.

I've never stopped to remember that, oh, maybe I moved next to them for a reason.

But see, now I'm excited because I know who I'm gonna invite.

It's probably gonna be really awkward.

But are we willing to risk a little awkwardness and see souls changed?

Are we willing to put ourselves out there for the God who put everything out there for us?

Are we willing to be people who recognize the fact that we have Jesus but we do not have him to ourselves?

Because you can't claim him to be yours unless you give him away.

Let's be people who answer the call.

Amen?

Amen.

Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for this church.

God, I am I am so grateful to be part of a place like this.

To be part of a group of people like the people in this room who make this a church worth inviting people to.

That's the unbelievable thing, Lord.

The reason this is a church worth inviting to is not because of the message, and it's not because of what happens on this stage or the building or anything like that.

It's because of the people in this room.

Every single person here makes this a place worth inviting someone to.

So, God, I pray this week that you give us courage to answer the call that you have placed on our lives.

It's a great call.

It's a great honor and it's a great responsibility, God, and we accept it.

We don't want to be people who say no to the greatest call that anyone is ever going to place on our lives, that we get to be people who witness others coming to you into a relationship with you and watching their lives change because we were willing to be faithful.

So, God, just bring to mind this week who you want us to invite in.

And God, make us excited to be part of that journey with Him.

And I ask all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.